Re:If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t...
by api on Thursday June 15, 2017 @06:19PM
(#14564941)
> Curious what you would consider an example of such a field?
The frontiers of physics always strike me this way. The names and explanations are incredibly strained and bizarre. This is probably the canonical example and is perhaps why The Elegant Universe doesn't quite achieve what it sets out to achieve.
Another one from my own academic past is "complexity theory" where hand-wavey concepts like "emergency" or "higher order causation" get thrown around with a lot of confusion. We can clearly see there's some "there" here, but I don't think we really understand what it all means yet. Put stuff together, interesting higher-order stuff happens, and so now let's create a combinatorial explosion of jargon around it. Publish or perish.
Finally "consciousness studies" or anything else semi-fringe probably counts. Again there's certainly some "there" there, but we don't even know the right questions to ask. Something is happening to matter that makes it wonder what's happening to it.
The frontiers of physics always strike me this way. The names and explanations are incredibly strained and bizarre. This is probably the canonical example and is perhaps why The Elegant Universe doesn't quite achieve what it sets out to achieve.
Another one from my own academic past is "complexity theory" where hand-wavey concepts like "emergency" or "higher order causation" get thrown around with a lot of confusion. We can clearly see there's some "there" here, but I don't think we really understand what it all means yet. Put stuff together, interesting higher-order stuff happens, and so now let's create a combinatorial explosion of jargon around it. Publish or perish.
Finally "consciousness studies" or anything else semi-fringe probably counts. Again there's certainly some "there" there, but we don't even know the right questions to ask. Something is happening to matter that makes it wonder what's happening to it.